Biographers International Organization

Joy-Ann Reid 

This week we interview Nicholas L. Syrett, the author of four books and most recently, The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime, published by The New Press in October 2023. As an associate dean and professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas, Syrett also is the co-editor of the Journal of the History of Sexuality. Nicholas Syrett was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview J. C. Hallman, author of Say Anarcha: A Young Woman, a Devious Surgeon, and the Harrowing Birth of Modern Women’s Health, published by Henry Holt and Company in June 2023. Hallman’s previous work on Anarcha has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, the Forum (of the African American Policy Forum), the Baffler, Montgomery Advertiser, and Urology. Hallman also has published five previous works of nonfiction and a book of short stories. In the general nonfiction category, Hallman is the recipient of fellowships from the McKnight Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. J.C. Hallman was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview author and theater arts professor Rachel Shteir, whose latest book, Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disruptor, was published by Yale University Press in September 2023. Friedan was the trendsetting feminist writer and activist. Shteir has written three precious books, Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show; Gypsy: the Art of the Tease; and The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, along with many essays and articles, and she was the founder of the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program at the Theatre School at DePaul University. Rachel Shteir was interviewed by BIO member Jenny Skoog.

This week we interview author Doug Melville, whose first biography, Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy and a Quest to Honor America’s First Black Generals, was published by Atria/Black Privilege Press in November 2023. Invisible Generals explores the lives of Generals Benjamin O. Davis, Senior and Junior, a father and son who helped integrate the American military and created the Tuskegee Airmen. Melville is a global head of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the international luxury industry, and his family has worked under ten different American presidential administrations. Melville has delivered three TEDx Talks, and he has been featured in numerous periodicals, including Forbes, USA TODAY, The Washington Post, Time, and more. Doug Melville was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Kevin McGruder.

This week we interview Rachel Jamison Webster, professor of creative writing at Northwestern University and the author of four books of poetry and cross-genre writing. Her latest book, Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family, was published by Henry Holt and Company in March 2023.  Webster has taught writing workshops through the National Urban League, Chicago Public Schools, Gallery 37, and the Pacific Northwest College of Art, working to bring diversity and antiracist awareness into creative writing curricula. Rachel’s essays, poems, and stories have been published in Poetry, Tin House, and the Yale Review. Rachel Jamison Webster was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Tamara Payne.

This week we interview David Waldstreicher, a history professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center and author of his latest book, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: a Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence, published by Farrar Strauss and Grioux in March 2023. Waldstreicher’s other books includer Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification, and Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution. He also has written for The New York Times Book Review, Boston Review, and The Atlantic, among other publications. David Waldstreicher was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina.

This week we interview Tanisha C. Ford, a cultural critic, educator, and author. Her latest book, Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon, and the Glamour, Money and Power Behind the Civil Rights Movement, was published by Amistad in October 2023. Ford has written for the New York Times, the Atlantic, Time, the Root, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and she’s been featured on NPR, among other places. She was named to the Root’s list of the 100 Most influential African Americans. Ford is also the author of Dressed in Dreams, Kwame Brathwaite: Black is Beautiful, and Liberated Threads, which won the 2016 Organization of American Historians’ Liberty Legacy Foundation Award for the best book on civil rights history. In addition, she serves as a professor of history at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Tanisha C. Ford was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member A’Lelia Bundles.

This week we interview Dean King whose latest book, Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship that Saved Yosemite, was published by Scribner in March 2023. King is an award-winning author of ten nonfiction books including Skeletons on the Zahara, Unbound, Patrick O’Brian: A Life Revealed, and The Feud. His writing has appeared in Granta, Garden & Gun, National Geographic Adventure, Outside, the New York magazine, and The New York Times. He is the chief storyteller in two History Channel documentaries and a producer of its series, Hatfields & McCoys: White Lightning. King has appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, ABC’s World News Tonight, PBS’s American Experience, BBC Radio, Arte TV France/Germany, and at TEDx. Dean King was interviewed by fellow biographer and BIO member Brian Jay Jones.